James Casey Interview : A radio interview in 2003
On the 30th Anniversary of the death of comedian Jimmy Clitheroe, in 2003, former BBC radio producer Jim Casey, who created and produced Jimmy's radio show The Clitheroe Kid, was interviewed by presenter Kenny Tosh on a Belfast radio station, and spoke about his memories of working with Jimmy.
This interview was recorded on a Sunday, by telephone, about two weeks before it aired. Because Jim Casey was speaking by phone from his home in Stockton-on-Tees to an interviewer in an ILR radio studio in Northern Ireland, he sounds like he's talking from the Moon!
The interview is one of many special events which were arranged in the summer of 2003 to mark the 30th Anniversary of Jimmy Clitheroe's passing.
BBC Radio Lancashire produced a half hour radio biography, Whatever Happened to Jimmy Clitheroe; and BBC Radio 4 also produced a half hour documentary, focusing on his Variety act in the theatres, All There With My Cough Drops: The Story of Jimmy Clitheroe.
This recording includes a rare opportunity to hear in full Baby Jumbo, a piece of library music recorded in 1958 by the Crawford Light Orchestra, which the BBC used as the playout music that followed each episode of The Clitheroe Kid on the old BBC Light Programme.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, if a half-hour radio show ran slightly short (say, only lasted 28 or 29 minutes), the BBC would fill up the airtime until the time-check on the half hour with what was known as 'playout' music.
This piece had no association with Jimmy Clitheroe. Its title, Baby Jumbo, derives from the fact that it was originally part of a suite of Circus themed music.
The Controller of Light Programme might have chosen it for The Clitheroe Kid because it was associated with another famous comedy act, Laurel and Hardy. It features on at least one of their films, The Finishing Touch (1928), scenes from which are included in their 1965 compilation movie Laurel and Hardy's Laughing Twenties released by Robert Youngson.
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